Big Data Can Assist in Identifying these Key Signals from the Past

Where do you start looking for these signals? The following are key insights into your systems through Big Data that can illuminate these signals:

• Your top performing CTAs on your website
• Sales processes to improve, remove and exploit
• Most effective follow-up subject for lost leads
• The top converting lead sources for my website
• Online lead sources that are on the rise and which are on the decline
• What do my best Finance managers do differently on their deals that my worst managers don’t do
• What marketing campaigns are the best
• What marketing campaigns are the worst
• What activities do my best sales staff do that my worst sales staff do not

These signals are best identified via historical transactional reports.   Meaning they are a snapshot in time of a specific type of transaction that has occurred in your dealership ecosystem via online, CRM, call tracking provider(s), marketing agency(s), inventory or other systems.  They simply report the past which is valuable but not if you want to know what the future holds and we ALL want to know what the future holds for us. But through analysis and power to combine them with other related transactional data you can find these conversion signals and link them from anonymous visitor to loyal customer.

Big Data Can Predict these Signals about the Future

By capturing and processing these transactional data points you will be able to identify the conversion signals and develop a predictive model. In short, a set of “What If” scenarios that are based on signals identified in the past that can help predict future results. Here are a few of those “What If’s” you may ask yourself:

• How much revenue you will make from your next campaign?
• What is the most effective call to action on our website for New vehicle lead generation?  What’s the most effective for Pre-owned lead generation?
• If I remove a lead source for online traffic generation and put it into another bucket how much more traffic, leads and revenue will I generate?
• If I change processes to emulate my top sales staff, how many more sales will be generated from the process?
• What level of inventory is needed to meet our current demand; if we increase more advertising, how many more vehicles for our used lot will we need to maximize the increase in marketing dollars?  Do I need more or less inventory?

Big Data Preparedness Checklist

These signals and many, many more can be predicted more easily if you and your vendors work together to provide a true warehouse of data from your vendors’ transactional data they collect on your behalf.  So a quick checklist should be the following:

• Identify each transactional report for all your systems related to sales and service.
• Identify how far back your reporting goes for each report – can it go back to Day 1 you came online on that system?
• Determine if you can receive the report in data format (CSV, XML, JSON, API) instead of a report format.

When you are ready to move forward this is a key list you or any vendor you select will immediately ask for. This is your Data Source List. You can only identify the key conversion signals and make prediction on the data you have - no more no less – so make sure you know where it all is located.
 You should go through the exercise of identifying the data that is available to you across your dealership’s ecosystem. This is very valuable homework that will allow you to know what you have and don’t have.

How MotoFuze Leverages Big Data

At MotoFuze we understand the power of what predictive conversion signals provide to those who embrace it. We also recognize what it takes to identify these conversion signals and how to apply them for your dealership’s benefit. It’s not just a set of reports to view once a month. It’s actionable tools that have the ability to leverage this data and make real-time adjustments to ensure the signals are followed through to conversion.

Importance of Google My Business for Automotive Dealers Online | Online Public Relations Strategy

If you are managing a car dealership, or running a business in the automotive sector, you probably already know that there’s a growing list of review sites where buyers and consumers are sharing their experiences and opinions.

Sure, it’s critical that you keep an eye on industry-specific sites like Cars.com and Edmunds, but make sure you also remember to pay attention to what consumers are saying on a broader and less category-specific platform like Google. Here are the reasons why:

1. Car buyers search Google to find automotive reviews before making a purchase.
70 percent of car buyers say that online reviews and ratings influence their purchase decisions. This means that they’re performing search queries to find the information they’re looking for. Google – being today’s biggest search engine – obviously gets a lot of traffic from these review-seeking potential customers.

So, it should go without saying that monitoring and managing your Google reviews will go a long way in helping you enhance your search performance, improve your online visibility, and generate targeted leads with purchasing power.

2. You plant many flags by establishing your presence on Google.
We congratulate you if you have claimed your listings and powered up your profiles on sites like Cars.com and Edmunds. Make sure you do the same with Google. 

By listing your automotive business or car dealership on Google, you get to plant multiple flags at once. What do we mean? Well, your business information on Google will appear on many of their products and apps, including Google Search, Google Maps and their local business discovery engine Google+ Local. It will also appear on third-party location-based apps and services powered by Google (via API). Currently, there are more than a million sites using just the Google Maps API, making it the most heavily used web application development API.

3. Google allows you to target locally.

According to industry research, 43 percent of all search queries on Google carry local intent. This means that consumers and car buyers aren’t just searching for a service shop or a dealership. They’re searching for a nearby service shop or dealership.

By managing your presence and reviews on a location-driven platform like Google, you can sharpen your local marketing efforts and reach targeted consumers more effectively; in short, consumers who are in your area, looking for the kinds of products and services that you offer.

4. With Google+ Local, you can extend your social reach.
Unlike with Cars.com or Edmunds, there’s a unique social aspect to marketing your business on Google. It’s all because of Google+, the social network that doesn’t merely connect consumers with friends and family; it also serves as a service for exploring interests and discovering local businesses.

Let’s say that a happy customer who’s on Google+ decided to write a positive five-star review of your automotive business or dealership. That powerful word-of-mouth recommendation will also appear on the Google+ pages of people who have that review-writing customer in their “circles." It’s a great way of extending your social reach and marketing to a broader audience.

5. You can engage with consumers and add as much business information as you want
Don’t get it wrong: Review sites are not meant to be a one-way street. When you claim and manage your Google My Business account, you’ll see that there are multiple opportunities for you to be able to engage with existing and potential customers.

You can respond to reviews. You can add your contact information, your physical address and location, your company profile, and photos of your establishment. You can use the +1 button to endorse your content and share your posts across the Web. Using your account, you can even launch new promos and special offers. In short, you gain greater control over what’s being said about you online, and you can implement new ways for customers to find you, no matter what device they’re using.

Looking to monitor and manage Google reviews, as well as reviews on other sites like Cars.com, Edmunds, and Yelp (among many others)? Check out Reputation Pro, a reputation management software platform from http://MotoFuze.com, and find out why our clients in the automotive industry love their product.

We are the Internet! We will Destroy You!

My father owns a pawn shop. A very successful pawn shop. Not the type of pawn shop like the one you see on television ran by the family that gets strange and unusual items that they pay thousands of dollars for. Nope, my dad has a normal pawn shop with normal stuff. My father is very good at what he does. He's very knowledgeable in the items that are most popular; jewelry, firearms, and electronics. Just looking at something without inspecting it he can give you a really good idea of what its worth and what it can be resold for.  Some say he's best in his area. Did you know what he's not good at? Marketing, online public relations, social media and I don't think many business owners are good at them either. People don't open retail stores, restaurants, and other small businesses because they can't wait to start posting to their Facebook page. A lot of times they make huge mistakes.
This is One Block West Restaurant located in Virginia. They post some really cool and engaging stuff to their Facebook page.

     

Great pictures, nice engagement, and they communicate back to their customers. Any social marketer can tell you that this is awesome and great for business. Unfortunately One Block West Restaurant posted something lately that was not so good. Apparently a customer left a bag full of coins, approximately $5 worth, on their table as a tip to their server.  The restaurant decided to post a picture of the change to their Facebook page and tried to "Internet Shame" the customers who left it. 

People on Facebook did not take the posting of the image lightly. They started to show anger towards the restaurant and accused them of being unappreciative. The comments started to pour in:

"I was a waitress for quite a long time going through school and if the ladies I served put their $5 tip in change in a bag I would have thought it very sweet to make it easier for me to pick up from the table"

"Last I checked, change in $5 is equivalent to a $5 bill. Not sure what they were whining about. It was pretty courteous of them to put it in a baggie as well."

"Wow. Ungrateful much? Geez."

Even people who had never been to the restaurant or even live in the Virginia area started slamming the restaurant on Facebook by posting negative reviews.

Some users came to the side of the restaurant.

One Block West has taken the post down but their Facebook reviews have tanked and reputation online, at the moment, is not so good. 

Businesses do make mistakes. Especially when it comes to handling their own social postings and online public relations. Bad thing is some users are rush to bash and "kill" a business online when they have screwed up, good thing is that the Internet has a short attention span. The will blow over and its highly doubtful that One Block West will lose revenue over this blunder. If it would have been a bigger mistake all of that could be different. They could of lost money, lost employees, or even gone out of business but if Amy's Baking Company can survive, they any business can. 

Are social media users too reactionary when it comes to small businesses making mistakes on social sites?